Glenn, I apologize in not getting back to this thread sooner, as your question deserved a timely and thoughtful answer.
Glenn E. Meyer said:
Al Norris said:
I would advance this a further step - that those who CC, are in fact helping to bring about complete the disarming of the people. I see this as becoming a more commonplace view with each passing day.
Do you mean that folks who don't OC when they can advance disarmament or just CC in general. I would disagree with the latter as I think the 40 states shall issue laws have brought positive gun usage more to fore in the public mind and strengthened the RKBA debates. Access to carry makes more folks consider it and then want to own guns and protect that right.
While the driving/travel analogy isn't exact, it is instructive.
My argument was less clear than what I intended. What I should have said:
Those that CC and oppose OC are in fact helping to bring about complete the disarming of the people. How? Since the mid to late 19th century, most States passed laws restricting the ability of citizens to carry concealed. Too, many States (and individual jurisdictions where allowed) were also passing laws limiting the ability of citizens to carry openly.
To expand upon that thought:
A few States and their Supreme Courts, continued to allow open carry as a fundamental right. However, in much of the US, it passed out of common practice and hence out of favor.
Fast forward to the late 1980's, where "shall issue" licensing became to be widespread.
It is this acceptance of licensing and the common opposition to open carry that parallels (though not a precise parallel) the early 1920's to the mid 1040's with licensing of citizens and their private transportation (something that was initially only used to regulate commercial transport) and the acceptance of the populace of the licensing. A populace that began to oppose unlicensed driving. We lost a fundamental right to travel and it's corollary right to use whatever means of travel we wanted
in non-commercial travel over public roads and highways.
You must meet the minimum requirements of a particular States licensing scheme and your Drivers License is "shall issue." Does any of this sound familiar? Read on...
Reciprocity issues with other states were settled the same exact way that reciprocity with CC permits are now being instituted. The Federal Government had and has no involvement with either of these licensing and reciprocity issues, then or now.
Read any gun-board that deals with issues such as open carry v. concealed carry and you will find the same arguments used in this thread. Both for and against. With very little editing, the same arguments were used in drivers licenses and why you should be licensed as opposed to just driving without paying the state a fee for a permission to do what you had a legal right to do.
Now, juxtapose the licensing requirements for guns in general (in some States) and concealed carry in particular.
How many people think that all guns must be licensed in order to even own them? Even in States where such is not a legal issue, the average person still thinks that gunowners must have some sort of license. After all, we license drivers, why not those that carry guns? Isn't that the uninformed argument?
So then the question becomes, how long before the rest of the States fall into line and require a license for any carry? A subsidiary question is, how long before all guns must be registered, just like vehicles must be?
So how long, before the logical progression of governmental regulation, catches up to gun owners, the way it has with people who own and drive vehicles (which is basicly everyone)?
Hence my reasoning that those who espouse CC and oppose OC are helping to defeat a basic and fundamental right. Carrying a firearm for personal protection should not be restricted to only those that can meet the criteria of the State for a license, which is often times prohibitive in cost to lower income people.
And thus, the people become disarmed.